Part of the ceiling of the Golden Palace, Nero's fabled residence that was once studded with pearls and covered in ivory, has collapsed, Rome's superintendent for archeological heritage said Monday. A 90-square-foot patch of the ceiling fell after closing time Saturday, a day of heavy rain in Rome. No one was injured. Infiltration of water and tree roots burrowing through the structure were endangering the monument, said Adriano La Regina, Rome's superintendent for archeological...

Nero 5.5 CD burning software suite $50, by Ahead Software GMBH For Windows 98/ME/2000 www.nero.com From a German company, and sold via the Internet, comes a high-powered alternative to the bare bones Adaptec Easy CD Creator software that has virtually all CD-RW drives for recording and MP3 burning. Beware: This is stuff for at least an intermediate level computer user, although the basic features of dragging and dropping icons for files and folders...

Americans have long embraced the foods of southern Italy, from pizza to tomato sauce. When it comes to Italian wine, however, most wine drinkers won't head farther south than Chianti, central Italy's major winemaking region. Too bad, because southern Italian wines can be charmingly bold, extremely food-friendly and a good value. Nero d'Avola is a perfect example of this, and more people are getting wise to it. The most widely planted red grape in Sicily, nero d'Avola is emerging from the anonymity of...

Obama gave a great speech - among the best of a man who speaks very well. But he only presented half the story. If he follows through on his plan to simplify the tax code and eliminate corporate and personal loopholes, there will be no need for additional taxes, and history will view him as a great leader. If he follows through with the same old bipartisan tactic of taxing "everyone fairly" but letting the rich and the political class skim the cream before handing the remnants to the poor, history...

Nero is said to have fiddled while Rome burned and then blamed dissenters whom he cruelly punished. Our leaders tour the world while light-armored troop-carriers overturn and burn. History would be much kinder to them than to Nero if they were to sit down in one place and not get up until they found and implemented a plan to stop this preventable carnage. No one would dissent on this one.

Nearly two decades after the ruins of the emperor Nero's lavish Domus Aurea palace in the heart of Rome were closed for a preservation project, the site will be reopened. Italy's Culture Ministry says the palace will welcome visitors on June 25, 1999. When built, the palace occupied one-quarter of the city and included a lake, several gardens and a residence so lavish that it was dubbed the Domus Aurea, or Golden House. Experts have been working to ensure that the palace, built by Nero after the fire that...

By David Potter. RedEye special contributor David Potter, a University of Michigan professor of Greek and Latin, is an expert on ancient roman culture | September 27, 2006

NEWS OF THE WEEK: The New Orleans Superdome hosted its first event since Hurricane Katrina severely damaged it last year. What the professor says: ESPN's dramatic images of the Superdome, marking a moment of renewal for New Orleans, recall an earlier building that once filled a similar role. Rome's Colosseum was originally built to help people forget disaster and look to a better future. The Colosseum is a nickname for a building officially known as The Flavian Amphitheater that is derived...